Since 2028 will be a wide-open race for the White House, there’s every chance for the election to change each party. Politicos wonder if Democrats will move to the center or even further left, even embracing a socialist agenda. For the Republicans, the question is perhaps more fundamental: What will the party look like when Donald Trump leaves office?
There will be early signals of what’s to come for each side. Last week I covered races that could indicate the Democrats’ direction. Now let’s look at four contests this spring that will give clues to the GOP’s future.
The first is the May 16 Senate primary in Louisiana. It will test which is more powerful: Mr. Trump’s stamp of approval or conservative beliefs.
The president endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow, who succeeded her husband in Congress after he died of Covid in 2020. She is gunning for the seat of Bill Cassidy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and one of the three remaining Republicans who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his second impeachment, after the riots of Jan. 6, 2021. Also running is state Treasurer John Fleming, who helped create the Freedom Caucus when he was in the House in 2015.
Ms. Letlow has some very non-MAGA views on the record. While interviewing for a university presidency in 2020, she promised an office of “diversity, equity and inclusion, with leadership that goes all the way to the top with a full staff because our issues are so great.” The primary will test whether a Trump endorsement is more powerful than opposition to DEI chicanery. The race will likely end up a runoff.
Then there’s the May 19 Kentucky primary to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell. It will test if the Trump style can be copied. The contest features Rep. Andy Barr, former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron and waste company CEO Nate Morris. Mr. Barr was an early backer of Mr. Trump and chaired his 2024 Kentucky primary campaign. Mr. Morris is trying to mimic the president’s style. He regularly trashes his opponents as establishment hacks and demands a complete moratorium on legal immigration. The Barr camp hit back, pointing out that Mr. Morris donated to Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign and signed the CEO Diversity Pledge, committing his company “to cultivate meaningful change” by building a “more diverse and inclusive” workplace.
Recent polls have Mr. Barr, a respected legislator who flipped a Democratic seat in 2012, leading. Mr. Morris is third, suggesting it’s hard to copy Mr. Trump’s appeal.
Next there’s the Texas Senate runoff on May 26, a test of the influence of Steve Bannon and other populist hard-right disrupters. Mr. Bannon broadcast his podcast from a ranch near Dallas, boosting state Attorney General Ken Paxton for weeks ahead of his close March primary race against Sen. John Cornyn.
Mr. Cornyn is one of the Senate’s more thoughtful conservatives. He has voted for the Trump agenda 99% of the time and played a key role in securing the southern border. But Mr. Bannon often likes controversial candidates more than effective ones. Witness his efforts for the Senate bids of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens in 2022 and Roy Moore in Alabama in 2017. Mr. Moore lost after he was accused of past sexual misconduct with teenagers—allegations he denies. Mr. Greitens had resigned the governorship after it came out that he had allegedly blackmailed his mistress with nude photos. (He admitted the affair but denied the blackmail allegation.) The Missouri Ethics Commission also fined him over campaign-finance violations in 2020.
Mr. Bannon is trying to do better with Mr. Paxton, whom the Texas Legislature impeached and acquitted in 2023 on various charges including violating the Texas Whistleblower Act. Among other things, the state House alleged that he had fired aides who confronted him over a scheme in which a businessman hired a woman with whom Mr. Paxton was having an adulterous affair so that she could move to Austin to be closer to him. Mr. Paxton denied the House accusations, but a Texas court ordered his office to pay the whistleblowers $6.6 million. Last year the Daily Mail alleged that Mr. Paxton had cheated on his wife with a different woman, a self-styled Christian influencer. His office called the Mail a “trash blog.” Mrs. Paxton is divorcing her husband on “biblical grounds.”
